Over the past 20 years, Kenneth Ivan Crause has been a pastor, helicopter pilot, financial planner and tea importer, as well as a convicted thief and fraudster.

Now, the self-described “serial entrepreneur” from Vancouver Island is actively recruiting people for his latest venture, an online “community shopper” website where North American businesses can advertise and promote specials. Participants who buy in to the program, Crause says, can earn six- and seven-figure incomes through the sale of online ads and memberships.

Crause is the founder and CEO of Clikker, which launched in late October.

“I know we have a winner, because the response has been so fantastic right off the get-go,” said Crause, 61, a self-described pastor based in Parksville who ran what he called an “online ministry” before getting into Internet commerce.

“In fact, I’ve started many businesses over my life, and I’ve never seen such a fast uptake.”

But Crause’s past dealings have landed him in trouble with police and regulators, and caused investors and customers to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. He has failed to make court-ordered repayments to theft victims, or pay penalties levied by B.C.’s financial watchdog, saying he cannot afford to do so.

In an interview, Crause said he’s been up-front with everyone at Clikker regarding his past, including his 1999 conviction for bilking seniors of more than $400,000.

Crause described Clikker’s earning potential in videos posted online, which were removed from the web after Postmedia interviewed him. By introducing enough new members to the “revolutionary” platform, Crause said in the videos, participants could earn $300,000 annually.

“That’s a pretty decent income,” Crause says in the video. “The reality is that anybody can do that.”

“Now, I don’t know about you, but I used to be a financial planner, and I worked particularly in estate planning with a lot of pensioners,” Crause says, before pointing to a screen behind him outlining Clikker’s earning forecasts.

“To earn this? Again, I know it’s not guaranteed, but to earn even close to this, compared to putting that in the bank where you’re going to get, like, one per cent per year?”

Crause said in online videos that Clikker members can earn even more — potentially $3 million a year — by “purchasing a territory,” at a cost of at least $25,000, to earn a percentage of future advertising and membership sales in that city.

Clikker has “sold” about 40 territories so far, Crause told Postmedia, though he said early ones were sold for an undisclosed lower price. In an October presentation, Crause said Clikker had already sold cities across Canada, as well as in American states including Washington, Texas, Arizona, and Colorado.

Crause rejected Postmedia’s request for contact information for any of the owners of the 40 territories he said had been sold by Clikker, and declined to answer how much revenue had been generated by the company in the first three months of operation.

Explaining Clikker’s ad sales program, Crause mentioned his experience years ago as a sales rep for Amway, an international corporation selling various products. Amway is regarded as one of the world’s largest multi-level marketing (MLM) operations. But Crause said Clikker does not use an MLM model, instead describing it as commission-based direct sales.

Jeff Thomson, a supervisor at the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, said in general, it’s a “red flag” when a business requires “large upfront fees” in exchange for the opportunity to earn big revenues in the future. Such features, he said, can be hallmarks of MLM operations, which can be legitimate but are sometimes controversial.

In an interview, Crause said: “I’m not really asking (people) to do anything, I’m telling them what we have available and if they’re interested in participating, they need to understand the risks involved … They’re buying an opportunity to build a business.”

Crause said, despite his previous troubles, he hopes Clikker will be a story of redemption and he can be seen as “a phoenix rising from the ashes of the past.”

In 1997, Crause was arrested trying to cross the U.S. border into Tijuana and ordered to return to Canada to face 22 charges of fraud and theft. He eventually pleaded guilty to 11 counts, the Canadian Press reported.

At Crause’s sentencing hearing in 1999, B.C. provincial court judge Robert Hutchison said: “I cannot conceive of a more despicable crime than Mr. Crause’s because of the age and vulnerability of the victims in this case — elderly people looking for the assistance of someone with education to assist them in maintaining and keeping safe their life savings,” the Vancouver Sun reported in 2003.

Hutchison sentenced Crause to three years in jail, the Sun reported, and ordered Crause to repay his victims, “but conceded the likelihood of him repaying any of the money was extremely remote.”

One elderly investor involved in the case, Mary Clynick of Sidney, recently told Postmedia she never regained the money she invested with Crause. Upon hearing of Crause’s new online business, Clynick said: “I must say, he’s enterprising, isn’t he?”

After getting out of jail, Crause started a company called UniClear, which allowed clients to load debit cards and withdraw cash. In 2006, the Vancouver Sun’s David Baines reported the anonymity provided by UniClear was “a big worry for Canadian financial regulators. Ken Fraser, executive director of the B.C. Financial Institutions Commission, calls this sort of cash card ‘the perfect vehicle for money laundering.’”

That year, B.C. Superintendent of Financial Institutions W. Alan Clark issued a cease-and-desist order for UniClear and, 10 months later, penalized Crause, his associates, and UniClear for breaching the order and “clearly” continuing to operate an unauthorized deposit business.

Ficom spokesman Greg Dickson told Postmedia that the agency’s attempts “to recover money due for penalties and investigative costs on this file have been largely unsuccessful. Less than $100 has been recovered to date.”

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